Abstracts Latimpe Platform 2020
We had 26 high-quality presentations at the conference 13-14 May, including two by students and the rest by teachers, researchers and freelance musicians. Read all submitted abstracts here to learn more about the projects presented.
Keynote – Evert Hoogendoorn: Designing education in a technological age (and keeping it human)
Most recent developments have forced us all into a situation where technology is one of the few solutions still left for us to reach our students. Some say Education, under the pressure of the corona-crisis, has taken a leap in development that nobody held possible for the next 20 years.
At the same time it becomes really clear what we miss when we are not present in the same space with our students. Technology and education is not a question of translating our classes to a different medium. It is a question of re-inventing our didactics, our goals and the way we communicate.
This becomes obvious now that we are forced into this new reality, but the questions that are now surfacing have been there for some time.
Under influence of real world developments like games, social media, artificial intelligence etc. the way we look at the world around us has changed. Our relation with knowledge has changed, our sense of distance, space and time has changed. We, and even more so our students, live in a different world then we did 50, 20, or even 10 years ago.
This also means our behavior has changed. In education, this is often perceived as problematic with students having shorter attention spans and a wish for immediate satisfaction. But it also has brought many interesting possibilities and challenges. Based on principles borrowed from the domain of game design, Hoogendoorn and his colleagues have developed a way of designing education that focuses on learning behavior instead of the content that we have to offer. They call it ludodidactics, a combination of (the Latin word for) play and education.
In his talk, Evert Hoogendoorn will take you through some of the most elementary principles, and show some results. Hopefully, this keynote can inspire you and give you some insights to take with you on the journey into the digital that lies ahead.
Session 1a) Expanding the music performance curriculum
Chamber music tuition enhanced by digital learning management systems: An explorative case study from higher music education
Jon Helge Sætre, The Norwegian Academy of Music, Chair of CEMPE and LATIMPE
There is an on-going interest in expanding the array of teaching methods, forms of organisation and ways of learning in music performance tuition (see for example Gaunt and Westerlund, 2013, and Gies and Sætre, 2019). This paper presents another example, from the perspective of chamber music tuition in higher music education. The paper outlines a explorative pilot project where a bassoon teacher and five wind instrument students decided to use a digital learning management system (CANVAS) as a central tool for sharing information, for communication, reflection and learning. The five students had, prior to the course, formed a wind quintet, and were very dedicated to chamber music. The bassoon teacher developed and set up the project, and discussed it with instrumental colleagues and music education researchers. The collaboration between teacher and students lasted about two years, and grew to be a more extensive chamber music course than normal. The author of this presentation followed the project and conducted participant observation, interviews and collected written material (Fangen, 2010). The goal was to capture what happened, to explore this particular form of chamber music tuition from four broad perspectives. 1) How did it influence the scope of the course? 2) How did students and teacher decide to use CANVAS? 3) How did the students experience the combination of online and traditional chamber music tuition? 4) How did the teacher experience the same? Insights from the project adds to previous research that suggests that instrumental tuition in higher music education would benefit from including more elements of reflection (Carey, Harrison and Dwyer, 2017; Kruse-Weber and Sari, 2019), of collaboration (Gaunt and Westerlund, 2013) and of online learning and digital creativity (Minors, Burnard, Wiffen, Shihabi and van der Walt, 2017).
NextDoors: an interdisciplinary project week that strengthens the nexus research-education
Ine Vanoeveren, Conservatoire Royal de Liège
Inspired by the conservatoire s unique position within the International Arts Campus deSingel, the different artistic programmes (Dance, Music, Teaching Artist, Research and Drama) join forces during the interdisciplinary project week NextDoors. Musicians, actors, dancers and researchers brainstorm, collaborate and create together during this course free project week. The first edition in 2019 contained 54 different projects, initiated by students, teachers and researchers. The next edition, which will take place from February 17 ; 21, 2020, will display 67 unique and innovative projects, that will all receive full logistic and technical support from the conservatoire. NextDoors offers a platform for innovative creation and collaboration within the setting of education and artistic research. Many of our researchers (doctoral researchers and project researchers) offer workshops to students, where they introduce them to specific research questions, methodologies and experiments. Simultaneously, the researchers gain experience, data and (sometimes surprising) new insights by working closely with students for a whole week. Inspired by the many activities of the research programme, students actively take up their roles as researching artists as well. Some of the projects this year have clear research questions, e.g. how can I artistically translate a contemporary perspective on bodies within the present-day opera scene?, which artistic methods can transform imag(e)(ination) to sound?, how can actors take up roles of instruments within live performances?, etc… The conservatoire dedicates special attention to inclusion and accessibility within this curriculum project. Initiated by a current research project at the conservatoire, the NextDoors week will host an inclusive, mixed-abled collective, Un-Label, to work with students and research what it means to create and perform inclusive and accessible. Some students already included this perspective in their own projects, where they e.g. invited a disabled dancer or are in the midst of creating for a blind audience. All of the NextDoors projects are accessible for Labo, a group of 6 dancers with different kinds of disabilities within the dance programme. During this week, students get a better understanding of what an artist in the 21st century represents: performer, creator, researcher, entrepreneur, innovator.
Implementing Artistic Research in the Final Stages of Music Education
Timur Sijaric, Austrian Academy of Sciences / Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna
As a former student and tutor at a major music university in Austria I have observed that the majority of students currently enrolled at this university has a clear and straightforward curriculum consisting of two aspects: 1. Master your primary instrument. and 2. Do everything else. Although strides have been made in the improvement of student s education beyond their own instrument, the focal point of one s musical education understandably lies there. However, activities further from the plane of the involvement with the primary instrument are still being identified and/or understood by students ; and sadly, their teachers ; as secondary or even interfering aspects of their studies. Considering that for a successful completion of studies one is not only required to present a final recital, but also to prepare a thesis or a comprehensive presentation, the latter has proved to be a bigger task and often a hindrance in the final stadium of student s education. Using the garnered knowledge from being a part of a work group dealing specifically with this topic and my own experience, I intend to present chances and possibilities, but also obstacles in student-centered learning through the prism of Artistic Research. Being interdisciplinary in its core, Artistic Research allows students multi-facetted understanding and, as a result, a realization of their projects, very often in relation to their primary interest and/or instrument. In order to implement the tools and reap the benefits of Artistic Research, an individual (or an institution) has to have a clear perception of this relatively new approach in the sciences ; which exactly forms one of the main questions of this paper, but also the work group I am a part of. Artistic Research, if applied well in the education, can not only constitute a supportive apparatus in student s late stages of education and their early careers, but can also establish a basis for a versatile and ever-curios artists of the 21st century.
Session 1b) Exploring instrumental teaching and learning
Collaborative Teaching and Piano Lesson: Benefits and Strategies
Valentina Messa, Vecchi Tonelli Conservatory
Anna Maria Bordin, Conservatorio Paganini
The pedagogical frame related to teachers’ interaction and collaboration presents theory and conceptual principles in common with effective professional collaboration (Fiend & Cook 1992). Co-teaching allows more intense and individualized instruction in the general education setting (Gately, S. E., & Gately Jr 2001) meanwhile in instrumental/vocal learning there are studies that confirm existing problems for students regarding issues of teacher loyalty and dealing with conflicting advice. Nevertheless there are also many benefits including exposure to a greater range of ideas and added pedagogical insight, and also potential benefits for teachers if they are working as a team (Haddon 2011). The experience we are deal with comes from a collaborative teaching experiment between two teachers from two institutions, the Niccolò Paganini Conservatory in Genoa and the Cultural Association Valentina Abrami in Bogliasco (Ge). This collaboration is focused on two children, aged 10 and 13, whom early talents suggested the partnership of the two teachers to facilitate the transition from a pedagogical setting typically conceived for young children to one characterized by a stricter scheme of times and programs, and a greater variety and complexity of the repertoire, in order to develop their talent in a performance-oriented perspective and to deepen their critical skills, building their own artistic identity. The experience, still ongoing, was monitored during the first year through lessons diaries, audio-video recordings and a test administered to regular intervals to the two students. The experience provides important evidence about Collaborative Teaching, opening up new perspectives in the field of instrumental teaching. The presentation will be focused on six different of co-teaching models applied to the piano lesson, characterized by different roles of the two teachers and exemplified by musical excerpts from the repertoire of the two students: participants could experiment the didactical pattern as students or as teachers.
Inspired learning – music school students creating a performance
Michaela Hahn, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien
Marie-Luise Lungenschmid, Musik & Kunst Schulen Management Niederösterreich
Further improvement of learning and teaching often disregards one essential player: the student. As Hattie s meta-study has shown about 50% of learning achievement is related to the student. Research often focuses on the teacher, whose impact accounts for about 30%. In this qualitative case study, we focus on the student, particularly on the student s disposition and attitude to learn, which is the second most important factor regarding the student (Hattie, 2003). We search for teaching approaches that influence the student s learning, particularly the student s disposition and attitude to learn in a student-led music project. When Austrian Music Schools Association (KOMU) celebrated its 40th anniversary in November of 2019 the nine provinces and South-Tyrol conducted in cooperation with the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna a new project, challenging 27 talented young music school students (age group 16-20, which equals pre-college students) from all over Austria to create a performance by themselves. The supporting team consisted of three young professional musicians and a music animator. Their final performance showed a high grade of self-autonomy, visibly the students identified with their presentations, even when they were not playing themselves. Two focus group interviews with five students and the supporting team were analyzed by qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2015). The consciously perceived learning effects of the students themselves and the effects observed by the supporting team were analyzed. Particularly interesting were learning effects regarding the relationship between students and supporting team members as well as emerging hidden talents and entrepreneurial learnings. As a learning and teaching format developed from practitioners with accompanying research the significance of the findings support the necessity to find innovative opportunities with new teaching and learning settings for young talented musicians to enable them to try out their supplementary talents within related group of unknown a peers to support personal growth.
A model to implement instrument or singing teaching practice online
Timo Korhonen, Arts Academy of Turku University of Applied Sciences
The demonstration is about a model how to organize Instrument pedagogy studies, especially the trainee student lesson feedback online. The model can be used for different needs by changing the content. In the demonstrationI show how to use blended learning and flipped classroom ideas in order to create better learning, more teacher satisfaction and to provide a set of tools for the students to better survive in changing working environments. I developed this model to solve some obstacles that bothered me seriously: – How to organize trainee student feedback better by using video – How to stimulate peer feedback to become natural part of study process – What assessments can be done online only – How to collect portfolio during instrument pedagogy studies.
Session 2a) Exploring collaboration and student involvement
New Time Music 2.0: cooperation between HE Music Institutions in e-learning and e-performing in Baltic and Nordic countries
Timo Korhonen, Arts Academy of Turku University of Applied Sciences
NEW TIME MUSIC is a network of Nordic HE Music institutions and it is in its second circle. The first cycle was 3 years long. The first symposium of the NEW TIME MUSIC 2.0 will take place in June 2020 in Tallinn. During the presentation we will introduce the programme of the event taking place in Tallinn and the directions will be taken and questions will be addressed. The main aim of the NTM 2.0 -project is to create a communicative platform for the Nordic/Baltic members of the Nordplus music networks, whereby shared knowledge and best practices can contribute to the development of the Nordic/Baltic region as a highly competitive and attractive area. The most innovative part of the project is the so called “Experimentarium” – a three day hands-on conference open for staff and students from all members and other institutions organized in different places annually during the 3 years long project. The first experimentarium will be hosted by Tallinn in its state-of-the-art facilities. The second in Oslo in 2021 and the third in Turku in 2022. Another innovative part of the project will be “Wizard” visits. Member institutions in need of assistance can apply for a visit from an advanced colleague. All the relevant and innovative online tools will be used in organising Wizard-activities. – Presenting the content of the Tallinn Congress in June 2020 and information about Wizard visits – Experiences of the previous NTM – Discussion.
Perspectives on music education from youngsters in rural Scotland. What role for online learning?
Janet Macdonald, The Agar Trust Foundation
One of the few positive outcomes of the present Covid crisis is that it has driven a wide variety of online initiatives, bringing music into people s homes. It raises the question in what context might these applications be appropriate in normal times for the education of youngsters in rural areas? This paper discusses previous work on the use of online media for education in rural areas, and then goes on to describe a study of youngsters from rural Scotland and their perceptions of a variety of educational activities which they have undertaken.
Youngsters supported by the Agar Trust travel to a variety of educational opportunities, including National youth choirs, orchestras and bands; while others attend individual specialist tuition, Junior conservatoire and auditions. A qualitative analysis of the feedback received from 300 award holders (8-21) over the last five years has identified three perceived benefits from their attendance at these activities:
- Enhanced skills and confidence
- Community
- Inspiration
It is likely that the relative significance of these benefits will vary with the type of activity, for example whether that is a residential course, or a one-day event, or a series of specialist lessons. This paper describes the study undertaken and invites discussion on the extent to which the use of online could match the benefits of face to face intervention in these different activities, and in which contexts it would be important to meet face to face.
This is a group of youngsters who could potentially benefit greatly from educational interventions mediated by online technologies, and there are many pockets of rurally based young musicians in different parts of Europe who face similar challenges. Online technologies such as Lola may have the potential to meet some of these geographical challenges, provided they can also support the benefits identified in face to face interventions.
The Norwegian Music Student Conference
Anna Rødevand and Siri Storheim, students at The Norwegian Academy of Music
We are two students at The Norwegian Academy of Music, who are currently organizing Norway´s first ever conference for music students. The idea came from a topic that has had a lot of focus within the AEC lately, which is redefining success. Having just finished our bachelor s studies, the question of what success is and who defines it, resonates very much with us. The narrow mindset in the classical field and lack of relevance in the entrepreneurship subjects are examples. Both of us have been leaders of the student council and members of the board, and through this had the opportunity to influence the institution and be part of important discussions. Now we want to bring this opportunity to every music student in Norway. In the conference we will discuss how our education can be improved and showcase interesting alumni. It is important for us to communicate that we don´t want students to not choose traditional paths, but we want them to make and own their own choices and carriers. Not least, to be encouraged to do so. Speakers and panels will be made up of students, alumni, teachers and politicians/stakeholders from the music business. An essential motivation for organizing this, is bringing students together. We also invite teachers and directors, hoping that we can come together in fruitful discussions. But, to do so, we need to make them want to come. As student representatives we know how hard it is to make students show up at events, no matter how interesting and we see this as one of our biggest challenges. How do you reach and evoke the interest of students in 2020? What works best, Instagram, flyers, posters or Facebook? Our c7onference is taking place on the first of April 2020, which means before the learning and teaching conference, but long after the deadline for proposals. We would like to present the process of the planning and marketing of our conference. How did it go? Did we achieve what we hoped, which is to engage students in questions about their education? And did anyone actually show up?
Session 2b) Expanding classical music performance
The role of the light design in classical music performance
Barbora Mikolásiková, Music faculty, JAMU in Brno
The classical music concert production is nowadays utilizing number of sophisticated and advanced technologies. The light design in classical music is important yet neglected task in production work. Basic principles of light design were topic of two days workshop in spring 2019 for lecturers and students at the Music Faculty of the Janacek Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno. Important was a collaboration with professionals from the Theatre Faculty, Department of Light design and Music Faculty, Department of Music Production. During the workshop attendees learned how to work with lighting technology, created and realized were concepts of lighting design. During the workshop there were presented two similar concerts ; one without use of light design the second one with the use of technologies. During the workshop the students created two live performances which were working with a light concept (percussions and baroque trio). The music production and performing music students must find new ways how to enhance the experience from their performances and light is a one of the most important ways. It helps them to gain an advantage in the field. After a final concert there was an evaluation and discussion about the performances and the role of light in them. Conclusion: Technologies are gaining importance during the process of a classical music concert production. This kind of technological enhancement offers to the audience a new dimension of music consumption and aesthetics. It helps the musician to stand out of the crowd so they can reach to new audiences more easily and gain competitive advantage.
Cinderella: a case study and digital competence in the didactics of music
Tiziana Rossi and Carla Rebora, “Conservatorio di Musica Arrigo Boito” of Parma Italy
This study underlines how the adoption of pedagogical approaches and practices designed to inspire and disseminate the digital didactics of music is necessary to improve both teaching and learning processes and their end results. It concentrates on the figure of Cinderella, from Rossini through to Wall Disney, and constitutes a topos among numerous experiences with students of popular and classical music at the Conservatory of Parma, who were encouraged to develop personal paths and innovative approaches, and who saw an improvement in their self-efficacy in digital and musical communication competences as well as their artistic and pedagogical awareness. Nowadays, digital didactics has a strategic role to offer students reflective musical learning starting from their educational needs. Indeed, higher music education is being asked to act to educate the new generations of digital citizens in a variety of forms and in specific fields. For the pedagogical aspects, this work refers to Redecker (2017) and Banzato (2012); for the survey of digital competence and the disciplinary didactics of music, it follows the study by Rossi, Bordin and De Cicco (2014, 2016); while for the analytical contribution it refers to the studies by Imberty (1999) and the developments of the rhetorical device (Colombo, 2014 and MIM Group, 1996). An original multimedia product is illustrated in order to explain certain theoretical and practical aspects of performance to become acquainted with and appreciate: form-as-process (Rink, 2002), the characterization of characters, and comparisons from Opera to cartoons. The results show that operating on the web offers an extraordinary ; previously unthinkable ; opportunity for higher music education and represents a methodological possibility to integrate the most innovative aspects of digital teaching practices and the more consolidated tools of interpretation, knowledge and composition belonging to musical language.
How a classical musician learns EDM
Timo Neuhausen, Leuphana University Lueneburg
A classically educated violinist deals with a groove box for the first time. He begins his musical journey without instruction manuals or tutorials. The object teaches the subject. The artist becomes a researcher. He explores the world of electronic dance music (EDM), studies the background of pattern-based layering and loses himself in the variety of sounds. He and his buddy, as he calls the device, develop a close relationship. The case study of how the musician explores a groove box in a to him new musical field documents a self-directed and informal learning process in real-time. This deep and unembellished insight is made possible through the research design of the project MIDAKuK: Professional musicians receive several post-digital (Jörissen, 2017) music interfaces during intervals of six month-periods and film themselves while using the device. That way, learning and appropriation processes become empirically observable, as well as failure and findings faced with the challenge of using an unfamiliar musicking thing (Ismaiel-Wendt, 2016). Additionally, the conditions for a successful acquisition can be further investigated. Therefore, the tactile approach to an immediately audible response seems to be central in this case. EDM tends to be highly neglected in German school pedagogy and higher music education, although it features a dominant and vibrant music genre in current artistic and educational domains. The discussed case study potentially lays the groundwork for a teaching concept which authentically brings the characteristics of EDM closer to the students who are used to making music in a physical manner. More research is required with regards to the preconditions of a successful acquisition and the feasibility of possible teaching concepts. Last but not least, the question arises as to whether informal and self-directed learning methods (Green, 2002, 2007; Lebler, 2007) can be applied in an institutionalized manner at all.
Session 3a) Performance presentation
Reimagining Opera
Dario Savino Doronzo, “Alfredo Casella” State Conservatory of Music – L’Aquila (Italy)
Performers: Dario Savino Doronzo – Flugelhorn and Pietro Gallo – Piano
Memory, research and modernity are the key elements that follow a unique path in terms of effects and sounds. Honouring the past in order to have a dialogue with the present is the ambitious goal of this project. Dario Doronzo propose a wide-ranging repertoire that finds its roots in the complex and elegant reinterpretation in a modern key of compositions and arias of the cultured sphere. A continuous dialogue, without ever dropping tension, between spaces, dynamics, virtuosities, colors, synergistically merging into a music of new breath that finds in the revisitation the fulcrum of its knowledge. Fil rouge is the theme of the “re-reading”, a stylistic and aesthetic figure suitable for joining two such different worlds as classical music and the more fluid modern Jazz. Reproposing the combination of classical music and jazz music is certainly not new. The two genres met and blended in the early twentieth century in the works of avant-garde composers who loved to influence “classical music” with the new musical trends of the time. We remember, for example, the American George Gershwin in Rhapsody in Blue and, before him, the French composer Maurice Ravel who called Blues the central movement of the famous Sonata for violin and piano. The essence of jazz was present in both situations, in the creation and re-elaboration of new approaches, new pronunciations, and new ways of playing unrelated to the systems of “classical music”. Moreover, the giants of jazz did not disdain to make their art “oblique” by involving classical orchestral or chamber formations, or subjecting them to the accentuation of those elements extraneous to their nature, not only in their forms, but also in the typical split times of classical music. The involvement, in the new jazz context, of the old classic style lyricism must not seem inappropriate. Already in the late forties, Miles Davis diverted the jazz language towards a new “fresh” trend of lyrical, suffused, relaxed style. Cool jazz is born. “Disassemble” and “reassemble” works of a classic type with modifications and variations on a melodic, harmonic, timbric and rhythmic level leads the listener to fully savor the true value of Opere which, still today, continues to surprise us. An incessant panta rei of landscapes, sounds, colors that refer to distant cultures, a continuous and fruitful inspiration for new sonorities that, after about four hundred years, still move the mysterious strings of our soul.
Session 3b) Exploring music technology education
Student Research Outcomes of a T-shaped Music Technology Curriculum
Jeremy Baguyos, University of Nebraska at Omaha
In response to calls for higher education to be more involved in career training and preparation of its students, this presentation documents and communicates efforts to cultivate T-shaped professionals within music technology curriculums in higher education. In addition to teaching the requisite music and music technology competencies that are necessary for a successful career in music technology fields, music technology programs are also poised, without too much additional overhead, to teach trans-disciplinary competencies within the music tech curriculum. This allows students to branch out and find employment in information technology fields, in addition to music technology fields. For more than a decade, the University of Nebraska at Omaha has deployed a music technology curriculum that graduates T-shaped professionals. Graduates from the program find employment in diverse fields ranging from music to information technology. This presentation outlines aspects of the curriculum that prepare students to be T-shaped professionals, so they can be prepared for the diverse and continuously evolving challenges of entering the 21st-century workforce. Student projects in music technology, which have been the research outcomes of this curriculum, will be used to demonstrate how the T-shaped approach is applied to a variety of fields that are not directly within the field of music. A sampling of these T-shaped student projects that will be discussed in the presentation include, but are not limited to, the following: the creation of security doors that use facial recognition technology & music, using Design Thinking to create desirable products as well as desirable music, using sonification of data to aid medical research, creating information retrieval solutions for electronic music DJ performance, applying musical & programming skills to the creation of a sophisticated programmable metronome for practicing complex rhythms, and using hardware electronics skills to create innovative musical instruments for performance.
The Digital Audio Workstation as a virtual performance space
Arnold Marinissen, Conservatorium van Amsterdam / Bournemouth University
In the workflow of many composers, the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), a computer application for the recording, transformation, editing and playback of digital audio, is the central composition, performance and delivery tool. How does the DAW impact upon concept development, creative process and musical output in art music composition today? Around this question, Arnold Marinissen, faculty member at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, conducts a PhD research project at Bournemouth University. In the context of his research, Marinissen creates a portfolio of compositions and a contextual document. For the contextual document, he reviews the DAW practices of a wide range of composers, performers and producers. He then evaluates how the DAW has been used in his own works, created in the context of his research. In each of the works within the portfolio of compositions, he applies, tests and evaluates a specific DAW-based concept and working method. Around his research project, Marinissen currently gives an elective course at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, in which a group of Master students, both from the classical and the jazz department, gain insight into the impact of technology on their music, and develop technological concepts and strategies, to be applied in their own practice. In his presentation, he introduces his research project through a few specific DAW-based compositions by selected composers as well as by himself, and, importantly, presents his Master elective course, and evaluates a selection of the students’ projects so far. The Digital Audio Workstation provides a working environment which invites new approaches, possibly resulting in music that has not been heard before. What novel working methods can be developed, what problems may be encountered along the way, and how can students be involved in this kind of music creation?
Making Waves, Laying the Groundwork for The Future of Music Technology in Tbilisi
Mike McCormick, Guiseppe Pisano and Mariam Gviniashvili, The Norwegian Academy of Music, Tbilisi State Conservatory
Making Waves is a collaborative educational project between the Norwegian Academy of Music and the Tbilisi State Conservatoire. It was developed by the students and electroacoustic composers Mariam Gviniashvili, Giuseppe Pisano, and Mike McCormick after a week of teaching in Tbilisi in February 2019 as a part of the Modernizing Higher Music Education at the Tbilisi State Conservatoire project. Over the course of three weeks ; in October, February and April ; bachelor and master students enrolled in the Music Technology department at the Tbilisi State Conservatoire will receive group and private tuition in a variety of strategies for creating electroacoustic music. The teaching has been organized in a way that ensured our virtual presence over the long distance. With a series of tasks, deadlines and assignment to present, delivered over a dense communication network using e-mails and social medias, we were able to monitor the actual progress of the students works. This project will culminate in the MAKE WAVES festival, which will be held in Tbilisi in April 2020. This will be Tbilisi s first festival of electroacoustic music and will feature the music of all the students involved in the project as well as works by the three involved composers and a featured guest composer from Norway. Offering to the participating students the possibility to present their work in a festival setting and to establish a dialogue with other professional artists aims to increase awareness about complementary aspects of being a musical artist. Workshops about producing and organizing portfolio material as well as writing applications and practical organization tasks, will provide useful tools and give ideas about professional artistic outcomes. It s our strong belief that a project like this sets a precedent that will evolve into something bigger and more independent. An established yearly festival that can represent a platform for both established artists and students, local and international, to enter a conversation and generate a scene for electroacoustic music. At Latimpe we would like to present the process of observation and adaptation we went through in the shaping of this project. A process of listening and understanding, as well as interpreting the socio-economic environment of the city to develop a set of teachings that could be both useful in the short term but also offering paths for autonomous development. We cannot yet provide the outcomes of our research as the project is not yet finished, but we will have enough documentations and tangible results by the end of April that would be ready to be presented at your platform.
Session 4a) Performing and learning online
The use of videoconferencing and low-latency audiovisual streaming (LoLa) for instrumental music teaching
Benjamin Redman, The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow
The literature has shown that distance learning offers many benefits to learners, including increased access to tuition, and reduced travel time and costs. However, there are concerns that essential aspects of instrumental music pedagogy, including being able to play together, may be missing when teaching via videoconferencing. The LoLa system was designed and developed to address that problem by offering a high quality audiovisual streaming system that allows synchronous real-time interaction between remote locations. This study seeks to understand and assess the responses of a variety of music teachers and students to using videoconferencing and LoLa technology in instrumental music lessons, and to reach an objective view of the opportunities, benefits, and limitations in using these technologies to facilitate instrumental music lessons between institutions. Questions guiding the research are:
- What changes in the quality of the experience in lessons between face-to-face, videoconferencing, and LoLa settings?
- Which elements of instrumental music teaching can only be done in face-to-face lessons?
- What are the barriers to using LoLa in educational settings, and how can these be overcome?
Primary research was undertaken in order to collect and interpret original data and to elicit information from experts to give credibility and authenticity to the studies. I chose a mixed methodology using qualitative and quantitative methods to answer my research questions. My studies include surveys of instrumental music teachers and students to evaluate their attitudes to videoconferencing and LoLa, and a pilot study that investigated the frequency with which teachers and students played together in face-to-face lessons. Pilot trials using LoLa were conducted to determine its practicality and effectiveness in instrumental teaching. There are implications for the future of instrumental music teaching. Some higher education institutions are already holding auditions and delivering music courses online; LoLa offers great potential as a medium for teaching between institutions, and for larger scale collaborative projects including rehearsal, performance, and recording. However, given that staff can potentially be located anywhere in the world without needing to be affiliated to an institution, and students can now potentially study with a teacher anywhere in the world, higher education institutions will need to adapt to this shifting dynamic.
Distance Learning in Higher Music Education: Case Study of Academy of Arts, Novi Sad
Ira Prodanov Krajisnik, Academy of Arts, Novi Sad, Serbia
Distance learning, i.e. providing education to students who are separated by distance and in which the pedagogical material is planned and prepared by educational institutions in Serbia is a regular and legal way of studying, but only in theory. In practice, only a few faculties use this modality of lecturing which are mostly in the private sector. State universities have not developed DL even though the Commission for Accreditation and Quality Control of the Republic of Serbia (KAPK https://www.kapk.org/en/home/) treats the traditional system of studying and DL equally in accordance with Serbian Higher Education Law. The case with music studies is the same. DL in the field of music has not been introduced nor used in higher music education in Serbia. When it comes to research of DL in Serbia the researcher are mostly oriented toward foreign language teaching i.e. they include solutions in DL in the frame of MOOC or SPOC when teaching and learning English, German, French… My intention in this paper is to demonstrate the result of research of the opinion of the students and professors toward DL and to introduce first phase of offering DL at the Academy of Arts, Univ. of Novi Sad. According to the results of questionnaire conducted from October / December 2019, as well as individual statements of those students who have already used some elements of DL offered in January 2020 at the Academy, it seems that the model of blended learning will be the best solution for music study in higher music education so far.
Session 4b) Examining interdisciplinary relationships
KiMuPE. Researching my artistic explorations in kinemusical performance
Luc Nijs, Ghent University – Royal Conservatory/University of Antwerp
Musicians move. Evidently. To produce sound, to show their musical intentions to other musicians, to communicate with an audience… But can movement be used to develop musical skills? To develop improvisation skills? In this talk, I elaborate on the role of body movement in the development of my own musical language through kinemusical improvisation, i.e. the artistic exploration of the natural connection between music and movement to inspire and respond to my own musical inventions. As a classical musician without training in improvisation, I engage in an iterative research process to develop improvisation skills, using free exploration and a constraints-led approach. Constraints are task-related, i.e. using different movement approaches (e.g. Laban, Dalcroze, Viewpoints), and environmental, i.e. using visual feedback and interaction with other musicians and with different performance environments (e.g. abandoned buildings, public squares). In my artistic practice and research, technology plays an important role. First, it is used to intensify the learning process by creating an augmented mirror, quantitatively measuring and displaying bodily engagement (whole body, feet, clarinet) in my kinemusical improvisations. Such mirror allows to move beyond naked eye and ear observation and, by discovering (hidden) patterns in music and movement, to gain deeper insight into my own kinemusical practice. Looking into this mirror is complemented with phenomenological explorations (e.g. think aloud, diary, data/video stimulated recall). Second, technology is used to create environmental constraints, by visualising and sonifying my gestural involvement during my improvisations with music and movement. While the main outcome of my research is artistic, i.e. my own musical language, it will also have important educational implications. It will lead to a series of educational activities for instrumental music education (individual, ensemble) that address current shortcomings (e.g.autonomy, score-based) and challenges (e.g. diversity, drop out).
Sounding Philosophy
Dániel Péter Biró and Ingrid Catharina Geuens, Grieg Academy, University of Bergen
In 2019, the research project Sounding Philosophy was initiated at the Grieg Academy, University of Bergen and the University of Stavanger. The project, supported by CEMPE, investigated how creative, metaphysical and scientific studies can serve to inform a more holistic understanding of the mind and intelligence in the context of artistic research-based teaching methods. Today students of music are confronted with the challenges of creating new music in a globalized world. With the increased possibilities to share and distribute music, students are confronted with a pluralism of musical languages as never before. Without a common musical language, composers are increasingly challenged to develop and understand these new musical languages. These developments present several questions in terms of educating musicians. What is the best way for music students to learn and understand the complexities of contemporary music in an increasingly international community? How does a creative and educational connection with their immediate community affect their motivation and sense of purpose in learning music in interdisciplinary settings? How can the contextualization of musical creation and practice in an international context enhance their learning experience and allow music students to achieve a new level of professionalism? The interdicsiplinary workshops and performances set out to answer these questions, combining the fields of music composition, music performance, dance, visual arts, and philosophy in a radical, inspiring manner. In so doing, the project set out to create a new framework for musical research-based education in an international, interdisciplinary collaboration. The new work by Dániel Péter Biró;, integrating text of Baruch Spinoza, served as a basis for the project. In this talk, we will discuss the connections between philosophy, ethnomusicology, music composition and music performance. In particular, we will discuss how computational analysis of chant formed the basis for a new methodology for teaching students microtonality with music technology.
Learning analytics in music education
Margarita Lorenzo De Reizabal, Higher Music Education Conservatory of the Basque Country.
Manuel Benito Gómez, University of the Basque Country
Continually monitoring student learning, improving tutoring, predicting academic risks such as performance drops or dropouts, assessing more objectively, or understanding the behaviour of student groups are some of the tasks that have been beyond the reach of music teachers. The current technology of massive data processing (Big Data) and its analysis (Learning Analytics-LA) allows to achieve these goals with relative ease. The possibility of extracting individual behaviour patterns facilitates attention to diversity, reduces school dropout and failure, and opens the possibility of implementing new educational strategies. The phenomenon of data-based education has led to different types of studies. This paper reflects on three trends or fundamental perspectives in the use of the collection of massive information applied to learning and teaching. On the one hand, there is a large amount of research based on the mining of educational data, which seeks to analyse the behaviour patterns of students and establish relationships between the variables involved in the learning process. A second trend refers to studies with a marked pedagogical approach, which use the aggregate information resulting from the analysis of the data in order to improve instructional design, enrich teaching methods and better understand the role of educational agents. Finally, there is also a significant number of research that focuses on the institutional derivatives of the use of data and aims to develop frameworks to improve strategic decision making, organizational design and curricular policies. Finally, we offer an overview of research and applications of Learning Analytics specifically in the field of music education, as well as a reflection on its possible practical uses in the field of higher music education. For this purpose, we discuss some practical examples of how this technological methodology could be incorporated into music research and its influence on possible new educational paradigms that have a greater impact on self-regulated and reflective learning, Long Life Learning, self-assessment, imitation of models, improvement of creativity, etc.
Session 5a) Becoming musicians through artistic research and reflection
The Core Portfolio project
Tanja Orning, Ingfrid Breie Nyhus, Guro Utne Salvesen, Guoste Tamulynaite at the Norwegian Academy of Music
The background for The Core Portfolio Project (CPP) is the suggestion that the globally changing professional life of musicians requires a change in both mindset and curriculum within HME. An urgent factor in the learning trajectories of students is identity work ; supporting them to clarify their artistic motivations and visions and by conjuring up future visions. The project was also sparked by two students’ call for more focus on artistic identity and broader perspectives at an early stage during the studies. In the CPP at the Norwegian Academy of Music, 40 music students are testing digital portfolio as a tool for reflection and artistic development, in combination with monthly meetings with an artistic mentor. The mentor role is a supplement to the master teacher-model. The mentors are also musicians, often with a different instrument or genre than the student, and their responsibility is to facilitate exploration and reflection around artistic/musical choices as well as encourage a more holistic perspective on professional development. The mentor’s toolbox is balanced more towards asking questions than giving advice. The ten mentors in the project are following a course in supervising and coaching which also serves as a forum for sharing experiences and ideas between colleagues. The aims of the CPP are thus two-fold: to explore and develop the digital portfolio combined with mentorship as a tool for the students to encourage self-reflective learning, and at the same time, to develop the role of the mentor to facilitate this. Questions: How can the CPP contribute to a more holistic thinking about the student as artist? How can the dialogue between the student and mentor with the active use of digital portfolio enhance student s identity work toward a professional role? How does the role of a mentor in CPP differ from the master teacher, and which competencies are required? As a method to answer these questions, we will use surveys and interviews.
Becoming researching artists. KUA-class participation as learning
Lars Brinck and Jacob Anderskov, Rhytmic Music Conservatory, Copenhagen, Denmark
One-to-one instrumental tuition has traditionally constituted the core teaching and learning activity for classical music HEIs, and most jazz programmes somehow seem to have taken similar structural approaches. In recent years, with pop, rock and electronica entering many music conservatories, it appears as if ambitions to educate creative, personal artists has pinpointed the need for renewed attention to the suitability of conventional curricular approaches. At Rhythmic Music Conservatory Copenhagen, the work place of the two authors, a decisive curricular shift aiming at meeting such needs, was recently put to work. The main ambition was to place the students development of their own compositional and performative material at the core of the curriculum, materialised through the weekly KUA critique class. The research presented, offers a situated learning analytical perspective on this new curricular structure by examining and discussing, how students and teachers develop skills and competences in and around these classes. Through ethnographic approaches such as participant observation, qualitative interviews and field notes, a series of situated learning theoretical analyses unfold, how students and teachers changing participation in deeply collective changing practices of artistic diversity and unpredictability constitutes learning. The analyses suggest that the KUA class helps provide a transparent learning environment through an explicit focus on a learning curriculum, developing the students and teachers agency as researching artists.
Session 5b) Digital tools
Document interaction to support music (distance) learning: CidReader
Enrico Pietrocola, GARR Institute
This presentation provides an introduction and updates on the research and development of a real-time collaborative Portable Document Format (PDF) reader, that, at the moment of writing, has the name of CidReader Project. The project was born in Intermusic (Erasmus+ funded project 2017-2020), sponsored by Consortium GARR through the Orio Carlini scholarships and hosted by Conservatorio G.Verdi di Milano. As a work in progress, an introduction to the project is shown together with a report on a variety of possible different use cases such as: Teacher – Student score and annotation sharing, Performer – Performer page turning and annotation sharing, Conductor – Audience score monitoring and more. The application aims to be a modular and multipurpose system able to empower a variety of music making setups, both local and remote, in music learning and practicing, distance learning and networked music performance. As low latency audio-visual systems move to multi-node connection, a preview of a multi-node interaction with CidReader is presented as well. Having an interface that emulates the score presence provides a key physical feature during the preparatory networked music interaction: pointing on the score, feature that a traditional camera-monitor conference setup can not provide. Currently developed for the Android operative system, a first web prototype (using RTC, Javascript and HTML5) is presented as well as further possible developments and additional tools. The application will be open source, aims to be easily accessible and easily executable thanks to its predisposition to run on common widespread devices and operative systems.
Interactive Genre Discovery Tool
Joaquin Jimenez
Teaching music includes appreciating and distinguishing the elements present in musical pieces as well as its semiotical, behavioural, social and ideological characteristics. In-depth knowledge of musical genres helps to understand creations in a greater context; its formation and meaning is an essential part of music education for creators as well. In this project, we developed a technological platform to enhance active learning and to test the teaching of the set of the socially accepted rules known as musical genres using digital tools. Originally conceived as an installation for young students attending a science fair, we developed the Genre Discovery Tool (IGDT). This tool enables visitors to discover, perform and improvise with independent, dissociated parts of musical pieces in a way similar to a musical performance on a computer that reacts in real-time to the user actions through an intuitive physical user interface. By being able to hear, separate and put together again the rhythmic, melodic and harmonic parts of musical pieces belonging to different genres, as well as to hear each channel individually, the user can understand its composition. We can draw the users attention to the function of each part or instrument of a genre s music mix focusing on the appreciation and understanding of music as a sum of parts rather than just being exposed to recorded pieces of specific musical genres. We test the impact of this tool in music appreciation, musical genre identification and musical improvisation on a group of students. Listeners become aware of the importance of each part and curious about experimenting with combining and creating new ideas.
Audit: an online practice tool for advanced aural skills
Jonathan Pitkin, Royal College of Music, London
This presentation will introduce and demonstrate Audit, an online tool developed to allow students of the Royal College of Music, London, to practise a harmonic discrimination exercise which forms part of their aural skills syllabus. This test requires the student to sing back specified notes from four-part chords of varying degrees of consonance/dissonance which are played on the piano. Since this task has traditionally been difficult to practise outside the classroom, and no existing digital resources offer exercises of quite the required format and/or difficulty level, it was decided to develop an interactive web-based tool capable of generating an effectively unlimited number of practice questions. This would be accessible via the browser of any internet-connected device (including smartphones and tablets). The author will summarise the process of developing and refining the programatically-defined constraints and procedures according to which the program constructs its questions, highlighting the ways in which this required him to draw upon and codify previously-unarticulated knowledge, accumulated informally over several years of classroom teaching experience, of what makes questions more or less difficult, and what constitute effective strategies for practice and improvement. The centrepiece of the presentation will be a demonstration of Audit, in which particular attention will be paid to the open-ended user interface. This allows students to take charge of their own process of skill acquisition and refinement, gradually increasing the difficulty of the challenges they set themselves, and reflecting on each correct answer once it has been presented. The presentation will conclude by considering ways in which Audit might be adapted, expanded, or otherwise further developed. The software will be presented as an example of how an accessible and flexible technological solution might be used to meet a specialised pedagogical need.